I saw this movie after having read the Tolkien series for the second time. Holy smokes, this is one boring movie. Ralph Bakshi gets credit for trying to do the impossible, which is to cram two out of three books into a two hour synopsis.

I have to say this is one of only a couple of movies which have managed to put me to sleep, so I might have missed some crucial scenes or outstanding dialogue. (I could not type that with a straight face!)

The weird effect of having costumed actors as the monsters blended into animation screens was the opposite of what I would expect. You might think that the best use of animation would have been to draw those fantasy monsters. So how low was the budget?

The Rankin/Bass Return of the King animated feature finished out the series and pretty much closed the book on any more ideas of doing a movie on Lord of The Rings. The consensus in the 1980's was that trying to build a movie, or three movies out the Tolkien books would be too costly in terms of lost characters and plot lines. And also, it was commonly thought that the audience was not large enough to warrant the investment since the Tolkien fan base appeared to be a fringe of mainstream moviegoers. The Star Wars movie had certainly opened everyone's eyes to the possibility of making money from Fantasy and Science Fiction in the mainstream in 1977. That is probably what got this project the green light.

Stay away from this freak show, and read the books. In fact, you would probably be best served to not watch the Rankin Bass The Hobbit and Return of the King animation too.
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